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Unfortunately, most colleges don’t teach their students how to manage money, how to be professional at work, and how to be a great dater. Dating is a skill and just like most skills, the more you practice, the better you’ll be at it. Remember that you have to practice the right things or else you’ll be building bad habits.

The Career Fair – Speed Dating

Most colleges help their students find jobs through hosting career fairs. This is like speed dating. Students line up and meet “The Bachelor/Bachelorette” aka. The Company. Students dress up and give elevator pitches – all in hopes of standing out from other job candidates.

The First Interview – The First Date

If all goes well during speed dating, or flipping through apps trying to find your special person, then the next step is to meet in person again. So if the resume, pitch, and appearance fail, that first link disables the candidate from even getting to the first date. During the interview, you’ll be asked standardized questions to help “The Bachelor/Bachelorette” weed out bad intentions, bad fits, and find great candidates.

The Second Interview – The Second Date

Okay, you’ve made it past speed dating and the first date. Now things could potentially get more serious. It all depends on how well you and the remaining candidates handle themselves. Sometimes you’ll get weeded out for seemingly no reason even though the first interview seemed to go well. It means that they’re just not that into you and that there are other, better-fit candidates. Your basic skills are good enough. Next, they’ll ask you more about your culture and long-term goals. Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you want to get married, be a leader in the company, and do you want to stay in Dallas?

The Third Interview – The Third Date

Alright, you’re almost at the end! They have whittled off unneeded candidates. Now it’s you and maybe you’re the only person left in your way. If you’ve made it this far – they saw something special in you and all your prerequisites passed – your presentation, social skills, and technical skills. What are some things that got you so far? You probably got along with your recruiter, first interviewer, and second interviewer. Dating you could be a plus to them for the long term. Maybe, you’ll commit and stick around for the infinitely-foreseeable future. The signs are green. Like Darwin said, the mating fight was for the strongest, most adaptable, and most evolutionary-fit.

The Job Offer – The Longer Term Relationship

Congrats! You’ve passed the hiring screens, interviews, and now you’ve made it to the job offer. We’ll give you benefits, relocation fees, and help you onboard to get started. We need to catch you up with everything you’ve missed about our lives until now. We need you to be on the same page and have the same dreams and visions. A modern apartment or a house with a white picket fence and two-and-a-half kids? Can you relocate to headquarters and move in after a few months? We’ll see. A lot is to be determined but for now the relationship is in a safe place.

All hinges on how well you perform. Are you a top performer? Will you bring a great ROI? We hope so. Your relationship depends on it.

So if you never made it to the first date, do a better job with your speed dating skills. If you never got a job offer, somewhere in the interview process things didn’t fit well. That’s ok. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. This is not a reflection of your character and identity. This is not an attack on who you are and what you stand for. What this just means is that someone else was a better fit. Did you break? Build stronger next time at the broken places and keep moving forward. In your world, you control these pieces. You control your resources, your time, and how you spend it. You are the master of your own journey. Now make your journey matter and make this the best journey you’ve ever been on.

And if you ever fail, as many of the great have, remember that you are a step to becoming better. Your experiences, especially the rough parts, have made you stronger. You are leveling up like Ash. You are Batman escaping his fear of bats and leveraging it as a power. Don’t give up and don’t give in – ever.